Saturday, August 28, 2010

Last Saturday night, an evil headache sneaked up on Trevor just a couple hours before we were supposed to leave to go to my company's summer party. He's never had a headache like that before. At first, I was bummed, but then I decided to make the best of it. I let him nap and then made him dinner (and yes, cooking dinner is a special occasion for us!).

At about 7:15pm I got a call from my friend Miriam who lives in my apartment complex and she wanted to know if I wanted to go to an acoustic concert at Thanksgiving Point where Chris Carrabba (lead singer of Dashboard Confessional) would be performing.

Could I pass up the opportunity? Uhm... NO! :) So, off we went, last minute, to enjoy some music I've loved since I was in high school! Please enjoy the pictures and videos:

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Warning: LONG post! But it's a good one! So read it if you have time :D

Sorry it took SO long to get to Part 2 of my vacation! I guess it's only appropriate to have this post done now, as it's been a month ago today (the 23rd) that we left for NC! This post will include some of the other fun activities we did outside of going to the beach!! :)

After the beach, we got back to my parents' house only to have visitors in town from my Dad's side, including my grandparents, my Dad's two brothers and their families (minus my cousin Morgan). So, in typical Southern fashion, we HAD to cook a pork butt and make cole slaw. Here are Aunt Kim, (Trevor), Granddaddy, and Uncle Todd working on the cole slaw:You've gotta taste test, you know!In the meantime, poor Trevor was fighting off a flare-up of his Ulcerative Colitis, so he did a lot of veggie juicing in hopes that he could feel somewhat better. Notice the nice deep green color of juiced spinach:Uncle Todd and Trevor, waiting to eat:Later, after dinner and other various dessert fiascoes (see below), we wrote cards to my brother Mike on a mission:And took another photo for Mike too, with the infamous yellow signs!So, I've got to tell a little bit of our dessert fiasco story. So, my Granddaddy Frank has diabetes, and because of this we always make this delicious sugar-free banana pudding for him as dessert. This year, my Mom and Dad made it, and we were so excited to break into it after dinner. After a few bites and a couple of comments about how good it was, my Mom finally took a bite and realized something was wrong. Very, very wrong. I had tasted it too, but just wondered if it was me, or what. Something tasted... well... off. Plasticky, perhaps? Sour? Bitter? After a bit of speculation and a group consensus that "Yea, we thought it tasted funny", we realized it was the MILK that we had added to the dessert. Although it was the day before the expiration date on the carton, it had gone sour!

So, following the lead of my Nana who tends to get her way with issues like this, eight of us (ranging from age 70+ to age 8) marched our little behinds into Harris Teeter to speak with someone about the banana pudding that was ruined by their milk! And yes, we DID take the rancid dessert with us, just in case they wanted to taste. :)

After a short discussion with the manager (who so boldly asked us why we didn't SMELL the milk before pouring it into our dessert - whaat!?!?), we walked out of there victorious! Not only with a new carton of milk, but ALL of the groceries it took to create a brand new, delicious pudding. Hence our victory photo:Thanks, Harris Teeter, for treating us like important customers! :) That night, we went home and created - and ATE - a very very delicious banana pudding!

The next morning, Sunday, we got to take a picture with Granddaddy (who wasn't in the picture from the night before due to his insanely early bedtime of 8:30pm):Sunday night, after all the family had gone, I invited some friends over from high school for dinner. Afterward, we partook in MORE of the good banana pudding and then played Corn Hole, a very fun, social party game.

Basically, the idea is to get the bean bag sacks into the hole of the board (3 pts), or to land it on top of the board (1 pt). However, if you get one in the hole and your opponent does as well, they cancel each other out! Same with two on top of the board! So, it's more than just accuracy - it's strategy too!

So, enjoy some pictures of our Corn Hole tournament! Here are Katie and Blaire (pardon the blurry picture!):And Catherine and Alaa:Here's Trevor - definitely MVP of Corn Hole (and my teammate, I might add!!):Focus Mom! :) We were playing against each other - tough competition!A closer look at what the board might look like in any given round:And here's a great shot of me with my friends. From L to R: Katie, Trevor, Blaire, Alaa, Me, and Catherine. It was seriously a fun night and I'm glad I got to see them again! :)Okay, so I'm sorry for the longest post EVER, but just a few more pictures of us boating later that week. Trevor had gotten sicker, so he stayed back to rest up, but we sure did have fun! :)Me waterskiing (I got up on my first try even though it's been 2+ years since doing this!!):And me kneeboarding - my FAVORITE! (Ignore the awful nerdy goggles. Please and thank you!):My Mom also got up on the kneeboard in just two tries!! It's not an easy task, so give her LOTS of kudos!! :) Skimming the water with her fingers like a pro:And she's also a pro water skiier:My dad was on the boat with us too, and he's the awesome, amazing boat driver that made all of this waterskiing and kneeboarding magic happen! Thanks Daddy!

Overall, it was a much-needed, fantastic vacation! It was hard to come back to real life, but also nice in it's own right. Now summer's getting close to ending, but hopefully we'll have some good fall memories to come!!

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Trevor and I took our big yearly trip this year for over a week and a half to North Carolina to visit my family and go to the beach. Many more pictures will come, but this post is dedicated to the fun we had at the beach. The first 2 1/2 days it was just Trevor and I with my parents and we had a lot of fun just laying out and boogie boarding in the wonderful ocean.

On Wednesday afternoon, my Aunt Kristen, Uncle Scott, and cousin Lauren joined us. That night, we all went out for dinner at Amos Mosquitos (also known as Skeeters) for dinner. We sat outside on the patio and got to enjoy the sunset and good food.

Here we are at dinner:And our view from our table out into the sound: Thursday it was rainy, so all the girls went swimsuit shopping. Then we all hung out and played games. On Friday, it was a nice sunny day, and my mom and I got to sport our new swimsuits: Trevor enjoying his beach lounge chair: Me and my sweetie at one of the best places on planet Earth:Drawing the traditional beach heart in the sand. We always include the dates of our trip with all of our names in the heart so we can remember:

Our Family

The Shipps were married on May 3, 2008 in the Salt Lake City, Utah LDS Temple. Alex enjoys reading, listening to music, finding creative projects to do, doing anything on the computer, playing games, baking, shopping, and yoga. T is a hard worker who loves to read, play games, build websites, clean our apartment, golf, and make Alex happy with his contageous smile! He graduated from BYU in August 2011 with a degree in Business Management with an emphasis in Finance. Alex graduated from BYU with a degree in Business Management in April, 2009. Our little Charlie arrived on October, 25 2011 and he is going to have a little sister in June 2014! Welcome to our blog!